“Soul” introduces Joe Gardner (voice of Jamie Foxx) – a middle-school band teacher who has a passion for jazz. “Joe wants more than anything to become a professional jazz pianist,” says director Pete Docter. “So when he’s offered a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play with one of the greats, Joe feels he’s reached the top of the ultimate mountain.” But one small misstep takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before – a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks and interests before they go to Earth. According to Docter, the idea for this unique world was 23 years in the making. “It started with my son—he’s 23 now—but the instant he was born, he already had a personality,” says Docter. “Where did that come from? I thought your personality developed through your interaction with the world. And yet, it was pretty clear that we’re all born with a very unique, specific sense of who we are.
In Soul, characters like Jerry and Terry, the counselors drawn in outline style, relied heavily on Ground Locking to stay convincingly grounded while moving. Terry alone had around 300 control points, and the addition of new tension controls allowed animators to create sharper angles and even add playful details, such as randomly growing fingers. With just a few adjustments, they could easily modify the various forms these 2D line-based characters take, maintaining their expressive flexibility.
Ground Locking is a procedural animation system that automatically aligns a 3D character to a defined path, adapting its position and orientation to uneven terrain. In Soul, this allowed characters like Jerry and Terry to stay convincingly grounded while sliding or moving, preventing foot sliding or unnatural overlaps. Combined with tension controls and hundreds of rig points, the system gave animators precise control over shape and expression while maintaining physically accurate interactions with the environment.
2D CoDE automates movements for line-based characters like Terry and Jerry in Soul, allowing their simple 2D forms to stretch, bend, and morph naturally. This system gives animators the ability to create highly expressive performances with minimal manual adjustment, maintaining consistency in style and volume while capturing the fluid, flexible motion that defines these unique characters.
